French Open Data Demand Spurs Network Congestion Fix

By Marie Mawad -
Jun 5, 2012

While tennis fans watch the action on
the courts at the French Open this week, Jean-Luc Vuillemin is
more focused on what’s happening in the stands. Across the
Roland Garros complex in Paris, fans use mobile devices to keep
an eye on matches other than the one they’re attending --
potentially overloading parts of the France Telecom SA (FTE) wireless
network that Vuillemin oversees.

“More and more spots just like this one are going to pop
up,” Vuillemin said. “Our networks overall have enough
capacity, but we face challenges where large crowds connect in
one place and generate loads of traffic.”

From stadiums to airports, train stations to business
centers, wireless networks worldwide get bogged down when
thousands of users packed into tight spaces reach for their
handsets to video chat, watch movies and play games online.

Ericsson AB, Alcatel-Lucent SA and Huawei Technologies Co.
say they have a solution: downsized antennas, smaller and
cheaper, made to hang on lamp posts, traffic lights or on the
side of buildings where networks need the boost and full-blown
gear can’t fit.

While no widespread installation of these new “small
cells” has been announced, manufacturers have high hopes for
the technology. The market may triple to $10.1 billion by 2015
from 2012, according to ABI Research. In contrast, capital
spending by phone companies worldwide this year could expand 3
percent to $314 billion, researcher Ovum predicts, after half a
decade of average annual growth of 6.5 percent.

Alcatel’s Cube

“Vendors are betting they can sell ten times the volume if
they turn to small cells,” said Dimitris Mavrakis, an analyst
at Informa Telecoms & Media in Athens. “In comparison,
developed markets are already saturated with macro cells.”

Ericsson’s smallest product is about the size of a four-
slice toaster. The world’s biggest maker of wireless-network
equipment bought Canadian company BelAir Networks in April to
broaden its reach into offloading data.

Small-cell equipment is eight to 12 times cheaper than
larger gear, according to Nick Marshall, an analyst with ABI
Research in Austin, Texas. Marshall said prices are set to fall
about 18 percent in the next three years as the number of
antennas sold globally more than triples to 1.6 million.

How Profitable?

“I doubt that there will be more profit,” Marshall said.
“Second and third-tier vendors will also enter this market and
prices will go down.”

The new technology isn’t the only option carriers are
trying as they seek to keep up with surging mobile traffic. In
the U.S., Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc. (T) have capped data speeds
for users of unlimited wireless packages, and some carriers are
trying to offload traffic to Wi-Fi. AT&T has teamed up with the
likes of Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) to build connection spots in coffee
shops and similar locales.

European carriers have some of the most ambitious
experiments with small-cell technology. Nokia (NOK1V) Siemens Networks
plans to team up with a French mobile-phone company to roll out
dozens of mini-antennas starting next year to beef up capacity
in Paris’s La Defense, an area notorious for poor wireless
signals.

Mounir Bougrine, a 41-year-old technical engineer at
Societe Generale SA, says that whenever he wants to surf the Web
on his mobile phone he has to step out of the investment bank’s
skyscraper, walk some 200 meters and hope for the best.

‘Hundred Times’

“I’m out here a hundred times a day looking for a spot
with a proper working signal,” said Bougrine, one of 160,000
people who work in the west-side district that is home to some
of France’s biggest banks and companies.

The need to place them accurately because of narrow range
coverage may hinder a quick deployment of small cells, said Emin
Gurdenli of consulting firm Azenby. In a test in Milan, Vodafone
Group Plc (VOD) says its small cells suffered from interference and
dropped connections.

“It was crashing everything,” Chief Technology Officer
Steve Pusey said during an analyst presentation last month.

French carrier SFR, a unit of Vivendi SA (VIV) and competitor to
France Telecom, has set up 4 million Wi-Fi hot spots for its
subscribers by beaming wireless signals from set-top boxes. To
offload pressure on its network, SFR this month plans to start
offering technology that can shift smartphone signals to Wi-Fi
and back.

Vuillemin, the France Telecom network chief, says the
carrier sees the French Open as an ideal testing ground for new
technologies. The company offers a special iPhone and Android
app for the tournament that features scores, player stats and
live broadcasts of matches, creating just the kind of network
congestion that keeps Vuillemin up at night.

And since it was downloaded 800,000 times last year, it
gives him plenty of incentive to find new solutions. ’’Small
cells,’’ he said, ’’could be part of the fix.’’